coledot wrote:I've found a bug with wall jump. If you use Shift+[direction] to move into a wall, your character will waste multiple turns wall jumping repeatedly until something else happens to stop auto-movement. With no monsters around, a Shift+move will waste hundreds of turns until the character changes hunger status to Hungry or lower. Maybe possible to waste even thousands+ turns if you bothered to use a Mu^Ieoh.

Really? Oh god, is this on the latest version?

I thought I had disabled wall jump when running (i.e. holding shift). I will try to reproduce it later!

It's been a while since I last updated this post, and the god has been changing a lot lately. I've made some surface, obvious changes but also some subtle, back-end-y ones that impact how the god plays a lot. Let's summarise and discuss!

Major change 1: New ultimate ability.The dev team made me realize that I had been clinging to Heavenly Blade (to the point of twisting it into absurd, edge case filled monstrosities) out of fear of changing the old design. In the end I realized it had to go, and reworked it into a new ultimate ability that I like much, much more.

Heaven on Earth (15-20 piety, active): Summons a storm of heavenly clouds around you, which inspire you to increase your combat abilities. The storm constantly generates noise and clouds around you, similar to a constant barrage of fog scrolls. The clouds don't do anything, but they block LOS, allowing you to fight against groups with ranged enemies more easily, and attracts more enemies to the edge of the storm. Meanwhile, you get a Slay modifier that decreases rapidly (by 1 per turn, or faster if the value is higher). However, every martial attack that you attempt on a monster increases that value by 2.

Somewhat similar to Song of Slaying but with completely different dynamics. It lasts indefinitely as long as you keep fighting, but runs out quickly if you stop. Requires you to move because only martial attacks power it back up, and rewards multiple strikes at once.

Synergy with Serpent's Lash because, since it ticks down per turn, Serpent's Lash affords you two extra turns to build up without Slay loss.

Major change 2: Removal of Divine Weapons, salvaging three of them.Divine weapons are out. Well, they mostly are. The three most popular remain, as normally obtainable unrands with an interesting twist:

In addition, all three weapons are especially powerful when wielded by an IJC follower, as they make their particular attack be boosted by momentum at all times.

These weapons are intended to offer non-worshippers a way to play around with martial attacks, and to entice the player to make a mid game switch to IJC when found. It also connects the god to the world of DCSS a bit more, providing some background + lore in the description, which I still need to work on.

Major change 3: Rework of martial attack damage scaling.As many of you may know, previous versions of the god involved a damage modifier that attempted to balance weapons of different sizes, given that you attack once per move regardless of the weapon's move delay. Your weapon damage was imposed a multiplicative factor of (move delay / attack delay). This was a rather poor balance measure and caused untold trouble, from light weapons being incredibly powerful against AC thanks to insane damage modifiers, to "!!!!!!!!!!!!!" stabs, to a complete shift in brand choices. All of that was bad.

Instead, the current iteration of the god works as follows: When attempting a martial attack, you strike a number of times that averages out to the same amount of attacks you would've done by tabbing. So if your attack speed is exactly double than your move speed, you would deal two whirlwind attacks per move, and non-integer relationships are dealt with with weighted rounding (so moving at 90% the speed you normally attack would mean you fail 1 out of 10 whirlwind strikes, before any other checks are made). This not only normalizes DPS over a large period of time, but takes care of stabbing balance, since only the first attack made catches the enemy unaware.

First, HURRAY! this god is super fun, and fairly well balanced! I have been having a blast!

Second, on the new attack balancing, I would like to suggest a hybrid approach. For weapons faster then movement speed, keep the flurry code, for all the reasons you stated, lunges stabs, etc, but for weapons SLOWER then movement speed... bring back the damage multiplier. Having a huge chance of just wiffing really kills the feel of the god, and you were not seeing a huge number of slow weapon wielding users to begin with. This in particular helps fast movers like spriggans and centaurs, who feel crippled with 30 and 50% miss chances for whirwinds with almost any weapon they pick at low levels.

Third, something should be done about the vine stalker interaction with the flurry. I just got my first Vine Stalker with a quick blade since the re-write, and I have literally zigged twice and gotten 15 runes without feeling in danger. The bite spam from the quick blade flurry is just over powered, and synergizes unnecessarily with Heaven on Earth. Maybe make secondaries trigger off the flurry, instead of each attack within the flurry?

It might be better to just cap the number of bites per turn to something like 1, 2 or 3 depending on the speed of your weapon. I can't remember exactly, despite having read the code and playing a VS^IJC, but can't you get cleaving bites now? That might be a bit much. But simply biting the same number of times as you would if you were just tabbing seems pretty fair, considering how crucial the bite is to VS.

Ok, I am not sure how, but something got seriously out of whack with whirlwind code.

As of february 16th, I have a centaur with a move speed of .8 (had dark knight barding) with a quickblade, and when I whirlwind, the whirlwind step takes .2 time AND gives 3 attacks. It is fun but... suuuper broken.

Where you maybe trying to make whirlwind step take the time of one swing, and remove flurry or something?

theclanless wrote:Ok, I am not sure how, but something got seriously out of whack with whirlwind code.

As of february 16th, I have a centaur with a move speed of .8 (had dark knight barding) with a quickblade, and when I whirlwind, the whirlwind step takes .2 time AND gives 3 attacks. It is fun but... suuuper broken.

Where you maybe trying to make whirlwind step take the time of one swing, and remove flurry or something?

Anyway, should probably look at the code.

Yep, definitely have to look at that!

EDIT: Can't seem to reproduce it. Do you have a morgue file? Moving always causes me to take 8 auts with a centaur + dark knight barding, regardless of whirlwind, wall jump, number of attacks, attack speed on my weapon... It should be completely unrelated.

EDIT2: I totally can! It's the goddamn aux attacks again. Okay, I'll do some deep code diving and fix aux attacks once and for all. Thanks for bringing this up

EDIT3: Fixed, it was a misplaced check, causing auxiliary attacks to be used to calculate your turn's delay, as if they were normal attacks. Good catch!

Alright, aside from these bugfixes, there is a minor balance change in the new version (not so minor though if you're playing Vs):

Auxiliary unarmed attacks will have a reduced chance to proc when using martial attacks against multiple targets, proportional to the number of targets (so if you whirlwind against three enemies, you would have one third of your normal chance to bite each individual enemy and so on).

Also, after conversations with the devs I've removed the divine weapons from the current PR, but I'll be planning to work on them as an independent feature once the god is in trunk.

I have just spectated a game where character with falchion killed a group of about 7 monsters in Spider doing nothing but just moving back and forth adjacent to those monsters and without any attacks. Is it optimal? In this case we might need an "anti-tab" button to avoid accidental move into an enemy.

You just saw me, and, sadly I died right after you left. Right before trunk he tracked down a bug that was giving spriggans and centaurs extra attacks. Now they are unviable. Also, it was a +9 falchion of electricity... you kinda under sold that...

I hope he undoes it, spriggans and centaurs are under popular and underpowered in general, and having the attacks normalized against one would give these races a shot in the arm. But He has been adamant so far. T.T

I fully admit my eveidence is anecdotal, but, I don't see centaur and spriggan games when I log in. Is there a master record somewhere showing they get played as often and win as often? both 15 rune and regular? if so point me at it and I retract my statements

Personally, the reason I tend to stay away from those two races is because optimal play is yet more kitey and lurey than normal-speed races, which makes them both powerful and tedious.

On topic: this deity is tons of fun! I love that my character and the view pane are panning around during combat, not just standing in place and mashing tab. Thanks so much for making and merging this god!

theclanless wrote:I fully admit my eveidence is anecdotal, but, I don't see centaur and spriggan games when I log in. Is there a master record somewhere showing they get played as often and win as often? both 15 rune and regular? if so point me at it and I retract my statements

Popularity doesn't equate at all with power level. Win percentage comes slightly closer, but it's still a very poor representative, since there's no way to tell what percentage of games were played well, and into racial strengths (And "moves faster" is one of the less fun strengths to play into for a lot of people)

That being said, there is a reasonably complete online record of all games played, and there's an irc bot used for querying statistics from that data, I'm sure someone who has more time and easier access to it can come up with statistics for you, but as I pointed out, regardless of what the statistics are, they don't actually reflect power level

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So.. with the fix made to the attacks... spriggans are unplayable as Jioh. They are just... un-fun. Spriggans are already very much on the razors edge of RNG killing them, and.. lunging at a sleeping target and whiffing. Missing whilwind attacks all over... it just... sucks.

I used to have a LOT of fun playing with this god. Now... I don't think I can even play them. Vine Stalkers are still too strong with this god, tot he point of being boring. Ironically nagas are amazing, and spriggans are out in the cold. It just makes me sad no one will get to experience the fun it was to be a melee spriggan.

To Steel Neuron, I urge you, try playing a spriggan with this god now, with a non short blade. Hell even WITH one. I know you felt you could not up the damage output arbitrarily, but, this god already does that, significantly, for vinestalkers and nagas especially.

Anyway, until this changes... rest in peace spriggan blademasters of the council. We shall not see your like again.

Oh, and PS, the boots of running are not adjusting # of flurry attacks, I was able to do a 4 attack flurry with a quickblade at move speed .9 and the interaction of the math during berserk is off.

theclanless wrote:So.. with the fix made to the attacks... spriggans are unplayable as Jioh. They are just... un-fun. Spriggans are already very much on the razors edge of RNG killing them, and.. lunging at a sleeping target and whiffing. Missing whilwind attacks all over... it just... sucks.

I have played spriggans since then, and I still think you are overreacting a bit . Spriggans have a very distinct set of strengths when using WJC. As a general tip, I advise you don't use Serpent's Lash much (as it's best for slow species) and instead focus on finding a source of regeneration and aim to keep Heaven on Earth up for longer, as it's designed to function better for faster species (it settles down at a slower pace).

Another tip for a successful WJC spriggan is to make sure you're really whirlwinding at the fringes of enemy packs. Always end your move adjacent to a single enemy, and you won't be bursted down. Finally, prioritise wall jump if you're playing a fast species, since the distract chance is completely unrelated to hitting, so you can get more distracts in less time than any other species.

theclanless wrote:I used to have a LOT of fun playing with this god. Now... I don't think I can even play them. Vine Stalkers are still too strong with this god, tot he point of being boring. Ironically nagas are amazing, and spriggans are out in the cold. It just makes me sad no one will get to experience the fun it was to be a melee spriggan.

Just FYI, the vine stalker problem was fixed recently, thanks to your feedback. Now auxiliary attacks trigger with a reduced chance, so a 4 target whirlwind will have 1/4th chance per target to trigger a bite. That's what was making VS broken with the god and shouldn't happen anymore. At that point, it's mostly the raw power difference in the species that you're probably noticing.

theclanless wrote:To Steel Neuron, I urge you, try playing a spriggan with this god now, with a non short blade. Hell even WITH one. I know you felt you could not up the damage output arbitrarily, but, this god already does that, significantly, for vinestalkers and nagas especially.

I have played it, and the "lack of accuracy" is only a matter of perception. It can be jarring to get the "your attack speed is too slow for a blow to land" message again and again, but keep in mind that, had you spend that time tabbing, you would've wasted the same amount of auts attacking anyway; you have just had more flexibility on your positioning in the meantime.

theclanless wrote:Oh, and PS, the boots of running are not adjusting # of flurry attacks, I was able to do a 4 attack flurry with a quickblade at move speed .9 and the interaction of the math during berserk is off.

That's interesting! I might have to recruit dev help for this one, because the player.move_delay() function is very tough to mess with.

I admit I was being a bit of a gloomy gus when i wrote that post. Still fun is a matter of perception, and while I totally cede that you are correct mathematically, all those messages make you FEEL incompetant, clumbsy, and that feels bad, and feeling bad is no fun.

Much like your argument against the damage lowering effect, it felt "wierd" to you to have 2 handed weapons hitting lightly, and it made brands work diffrently. I Liked that a lot, I felt it gave me tactical options. Tab to hit hard, strafe to hit swift and light, whirlwind to lay down the smack. This felt unfun to you, so you did not roll with it.

Still, since I am giving you a bitter dose of criticism, I will also follow up with some sweetness. I Really do appreciate all the time, effort and work you do to make this game better. And, even if it is gone now, I had LOTS of fun with my spriggan blade masters when they were possible, and that memory is still there, even if they are not in trunk. Thanks for giving me hours of fun.

Let me know if you would like me to take a spin at disentangling the move delay code. I have not tested it, but, if this holds true for swiftness, that spell is going to be ridiculously strong in the hands of a Council worshiper. Since it is available fairly early, and works for everyone BUT spriggans (T.T poor spriggans shut out again) that may be a bigger concern of balance. I will take a crack at testing this, although air elemntalists are not normally my jam.

Berserk seems self balanced in a wierd way, the move speed attack speed thing multiplies flurries hugely, but flurry attacks do not seem to extend berserk the way tab attacks do, so it burns out faster, unless you tab, which prevents you from getting the bonus. It sort of turns berserk into a very fast, very short burst, even more so then normal.

Just wanted to pop in and say I'm really enjoying this god. I like using Troll Monks for it in particular (partially because it's a hilarious and somewhat terrifying mental image), thought I should probably try some other races to see how different playstyles affect things.

IJC was VERY strong. More than anything, being able to attack while moving opens up a ton of tactical flexibility. The free slows and other abilities were just icing on the cake. I have never had such an easy time in the early game.

It felt like someone had dropped the DCSS dungeon into a game of Sil. This was very fun for a while, but the constant tactical game wore on me eventually. I don't think I'd want to play IJC beyond a 3-4 rune length game.

I don't know if claustrophobia is really necessary to prevent anything. At least in my test case, fighting in an open space is a stronger play tactically (good enough carrot means stick is unnecessary). It's easy enough to juggle many monsters without actually being next to more than 2 at a time (another skill learned from Sil) and you want to be getting the slow and distract effects in. Whirlwind mitigates the risk when you actually do have multiples near you to a great extent, and lunge & wall jump open up even more damage-dealing possibilities. The times you do actually want to corridor-fight are very limited.

Serpent's Lash and HoE both offer strong escape utilities. I haven't seen this mentioned much yet so figured I'd throw it out there in case it helps with anything. SL for obvious reasons (free move to stairs) and HoE even without attacking is essentially quite a few turns of 2-radius Darkness.

Overall, I think if I hadn't gotten careless I could have won too handily with this character. I had a very good early weapon drop, so it's hard to say for sure, but I feel like IJC is probably too strong.

My thoughts on nerfs:

Attacking while moving is the cornerstone of the concept, so has to stay short of a full rewrite. Whirlwind would be hard to decouple, without annoying things like choosing which target you hit each move, or having it chosen randomly.

The slow effect, lunge, serpent's lash, wall jump and HoE could all be removed and reworked modularly. It would likely be too barebones, but starting with something like whirlwind as a passive and serpent's lash as your activateable ability would give a good place to build from and see where the scales tip to being too strong.

Whirlwind and wall jump ruin the god. The notion that free martial attacks should be, by default, better than regular attacks is absolutely perverse and results in autofight being replaced by alternating two movement keys. That is horrible gameplay and the elephant in the room and people need to stop dancing around it. And that's without the extra slowing and distraction and huge increase to the player's effective movement speed!Free abilities need to be like lunge, i.e. not better than a regular attack by default.

I still don't think a god about making combat less tactical is a good design at its base, but it would at least be reasonable without whirlwind and wall jump.

duvessa wrote:Whirlwind and wall jump ruin the god. The notion that free martial attacks should be, by default, better than regular attacks is absolutely perverse and results in autofight being replaced by alternating two movement keys. That is horrible gameplay and the elephant in the room and people need to stop dancing around it. And that's without the extra slowing and distraction and huge increase to the player's effective movement speed!Free abilities need to be like lunge, i.e. not better than a regular attack by default.

I still don't think a god about making combat less tactical is a good design at its base, but it would at least be reasonable without whirlwind and wall jump.

I see your point and share your concerns but please drop the drama, there's nobody dancing around anything here. We have been insistent that we're letting the god exist as is for a couple weeks before the nerfs come in. I'm very much interested in nerfing both wall jump and whirlwind, but there's no need to completely change how they work. These are the changes I will propose:

Whirlwind will deal 70% of weapon damage, with a slightly higher chance to slow.

Wall Jump will take 150% auts to execute, but the attack part will be normalized against 100% auts as before. Distract chance may or may not need to be increased against adjacent targets.

These two effects will have a significant impact since they will make both martial attacks less effective in combat and more specialized, with the added benefit of reducing Wall Jump's effectiveness as an escape tool.

That aside, honestly duvessa, I think the seagull approach to providing feedback (showing up all of a sudden and shitting over everything) is not too constructive. Nobody who has played the god is saying that it makes the combat "less tactical", and the feedback that we are getting does definitely not sound like "horrible gameplay". There have been reports of the god being tedious because of whirlwind and wall jump always being more efficient than tab, and that's what my proposed changes are trying to solve.